A wide-ranging collection, including two novellas and ten stories
exploring complex identities, from the acclaimed author of
Corregidora, The Healing, and Palmares
"Gayl Jones's work represents a watershed in American literature. From
a literary standpoint, her form is impeccable . . . and as a Black woman
writer, her truth-telling, filled with beauty, tragedy, humor, and
incisiveness, is unmatched."
--Imani Perry, author of, Looking for Lorraine and Breathe
Gayl Jones, who was first edited by Toni Morrison, has been described as
one of the great literary writers of the 20th century and was recently a
finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. This new collection of short
fiction is only the second in her rich career, and one that displays her
strengths in the genre in many facets. Opening with two novella-length
works, "Butter" and "Sophia," this collection features Jones's legendary
talents in a range of settings and styles, from the hyper-realist to the
mystical, in intricate multi-part stories, in more traditional forms,
and even in short fragments.
Her narrators are women and men, Black, Brown, Indigenous; her settings
are historical and contemporary, in South America, Mexico and the US;
her themes center on complex identities, unorthodox longings and
aspirations. She writes about spies, photographers, playground
designers, cartoonists, and baristas, about workers and revolutionaries,
about environmentalism, feminism, poetry, film and love, but above all
about our multicultural, multiethnic and multiracial society.
